Rating: 
Summary: Why this book is reprinted for so many times?
Review: No need to say much: a bad book. He wanted to talk about everything in the book while there is nothing valuable in the text. If you compare this book with the Solid State Physics of Ashcroft and Mermin, you will also agree with me that this Kittel book is useless. But the book of Ashcroft and Mermin has nevered been reprinted since 1970s, really a pity.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't buy this book
Review: Not worth your money. And if you have this book, you might as well donate it to some bum so he can burn it for heat
Rating:
Summary: Not an Introductory Text!
Review: Overall I wouldn't recommend buying this book at all.
However, you should especially dread buying it if this is
your first course in Solid State Physics.
The book is rather disorganized and
the author is not writing in a very pedagogical style,
I have no idea why this text is so popular
and how it got to its 7th edition.
Rating:
Summary: Most cited intro text, but why?
Review: The popularity of this text is mysterious and unfortunate, because it could be so much better. Kittel's prose is simply awful: disjointed, sometimes almost to the point of incoherence, and some of his affectations (writing acronyms as if they were words: "Ac" and "Dc") I find annoying. He often explains what could be simply stated, but simply states what must be explained: e.g., he loves to toss off rigorous-sounding mathematical one-liners, where he could explain more carefully why the result actually means what he says. Some topics are belabored, but other topics simply sketched, without any clear reason why.I suspect that this is the most popular intro text because its problems are much easier than Ashcroft & Mermin's, and Ziman's text lacks problems entirely. For experimentalists who have to teach an intro course, this provides a level of protection. To be fair, this text book does cover some topics in more depth and cover more steps in some derivations than the other two I mentioned. But that's true of the other books as well, and I actually enjoy reading those.
Rating:
Summary: Not an Intro book
Review: This book is an awful introduction to solid state physics. I would recommend Ashcroft and Mermin's version. Kittel dives right into equations without deriving them at all and assumes prior knowledge of quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, and E&M. I am a senior engineering college student at the school Kittel taught (UC Berkeley) and we are forced to use his book because it's a "classic" in the field but it is just a terrible book to try to learn from.
Rating:
Summary: Not an Intro book
Review: This book is an awful introduction to solid state physics. I would recommend Ashcroft and Mermin's version. Kittel dives right into equations without deriving them at all and assumes prior knowledge of quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, and E&M. I am a senior engineering college student at the school Kittel taught (UC Berkeley) and we are forced to use his book because it's a "classic" in the field but it is just a terrible book to try to learn from.
Rating:
Summary: Introduction to Hell
Review: This book is terrible. It is pedantic in parts handwaving in others. I recommend you drop the class you are buying it for.
Rating:
Summary: Introduction to Hell
Review: This book is terrible. It is pedantic in parts handwaving in others. I reccomend you drop the class you are buying it for.
Rating:
Summary: Terrible
Review: This is a classic in its field. I wonder why? It's by far one of the worst books I read in physics, math or electronics. It's disjointed, jumping around. Unfortunately when I was a student this book was our textbook. I tried other books--I enjoyed the first few chapters of Ashcroft's book a lot more, but even that book degenerated in later chapters. If this book is assigned to you as a textbook, don't give up on Solid State, just try some other books. Any other book has to be better.
Rating:
Summary: Be careful
Review: This is not a book for study by yourself. Contents are physically and mathematically exact and precise. But the auther is such a person who doesn't like to spend time for minute explanation. This book is useful only when you are taking lecture of solid state physics and you have a teacher who can answer your questions.
There are plenty of books better for study on your own.
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